I’ve never rooted so hard for a team I care nothing about as I did for the New York Football Giants. Watching them upset the Patriots was sweet, and tonight I savor a victory cocktail made from Bill Belichick’s tears.

I left Saturday morning with friends for our annual winter cabin trip near White Sulphur Springs. For the last five years we’ve done a three-day weekend here, and depending on the amount of snow have had to ski in as far as two miles (except for the dry year we were able to drive all the way to the cabin door). This year, the first drifts stopped us at least three miles out, so we had no choice but to strap on the boards and start the uphill grunt.

We should have known the trip was cursed before we even got there. Driving in two vehicles, we were set to meet up at the east end of Great Falls to convoy over King’s Hill. While we were waiting for the second car to arrive, a sheriff’s rig pulled across the entrance to the highway and blocked the road. The stretch between Great Falls and Belt had just been shut down due to high wind and drifting snow. We regrouped and decided to go the long way around, through Helena and Townsend. It added an hour to our trip, but we figured we’d still have plenty of time for our three-mile ski.

Which didn’t last long. Once we were on foot, the wind picked up and was soon roaring at about 30 miles an hour, with gusts even higher. We were towing two gear sleds in addition to our packs, and the wind was blowing directly into our faces. The grains of dry snow started to feel like sand. We managed to go maybe three-quarters of a mile in an hour and a half, and realized we’d still be skiing long after dark at this rate. So we turned tail and headed for town, where warm beds, hot food, and blistering water awaited. After dinner at the Mint and a soak at the Spa, we turned in for the night.

The next morning the wind was blowing just as hard, so we cut bait on the entire trip and headed back to Great Falls on the now-open King’s Hill road. Just past the north side of the pass, we came across a woman who’d just put her car into the berm of plowed snow above the steep drop-off to Belt Creek. If she’d gone another two feet, she’d have dropped 80 feet to the creek. But she was unhurt and we gave her a lift in to Neihart to call a wrecker.

All in all, it was a weird, weird trip. Hopefully next year we’ll meet with better weather and fewer disasters.

Update: here’s a sketch showing how the cabin looks if you can actually reach it:

KFBB aired its piece on Banik’s role on the Voyagers’ name change Sunday night on the 10 o’clock news. I told them to shoot my best side, so they sort of winced and circled me with the camera a few times before dropping the tripod where it suited them. But they cut together a good piece from all the random information Dan, Pat, and I gave them. Here’s a lengthier explanation of our part in the process. Thanks to Zack and the crew at KFBB for making us look good, and keeping baseball on people’s minds during football season.

Speaking of which, I watched the Giants upset the Pack on the frozen tundra at Lambeau last night. It was fun to watch the broadcasters whine about the cold. There should be a Constitutional amendment requiring the Super Bowl to be played in cold weather. I’m hoping it reaches -40 here before the current spell breaks.

KFBB just dropped by the office to interview a few of us about the Voyagers viral campaign. It’s scheduled to air on the Sunday night news at 10. I’ll be the dork on the left side of your screen. We attempted to explain how we came up with the campaign and what it took to make it work. Hopefully, through the magic of editing, some of that will actually come through.

They say the camera adds ten pounds, so it’ll probably look like I have three or four of them trained on me at all times during the interview. I weighed myself the other night, and I didn’t just tip the scale—I put its kids through college. So I busted out a two-mile run for the first time in a long time last night. I’m feeling it today, but it’s either suffer the pain for a while or get used to not knowing what my shoes look like. I’m doing an annual backcountry ski trip with friends next weekend, so hopefully I won’t be completely immobile by then.

Incredible…I set this page up a few months back and promptly forgot completely about it…then suddenly, two comments in one day! My server farm is melting under the load. Guess it’s time to get off my duff and actually use this thing. In all the excitement I deleted Andy’s post, so now I’m back down to one (Andy didn’t have anything useful to say, so you’re not missing much.)

If by some miracle a third person should stumble onto this page, it’s probably due to my recent part in helping the Great Falls White Sox Voyagers launch their new name and image. We had a great time doing it and look forward to doing more soon. A ton of people volunteered their time to the project and we received some unlooked-for help from the blogosphere, particularly in the form of Greaterfalls.com and Ron Grimshaw. And the buzz hasn’t completely subsided yet…I’m currently slated to be grilled by ABC for a bit on the Sunday news. My plan is to deny everything and lawyer up.

That’s all for now, but I’ll try to update this train wreck more frequently from here on out—look for fresh material sometime in early June.